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Good advice, nevertheless. Still, I'm wondering if anyone out there has any advice on food writing specifically. Thoughts on how to start? Subjects to avoid? How do you communicate your love and in-depth knowledge of food to an audience without boring or alienating them? ← Develop a thick skin. Criticism happens. It can be a great learning tool.

I want to thank all of you who replied. I cut and pasted several of your thought, sent them to my boss and WOW! the category was changed to Modern Cuisine - still not perfect but much better and at least up to date. Now if I could only get him to rereview places we haven't done in years I'd be a happy camper.

I agree that "she made her point loud and clear." And a large part of her point may not have insulted her "intended" customer base, but it definitely insulted a large percentage of her potential customer base. I think this, as a general rule of thumb, may be true. However, I don't think it is likely to be the case with respect to people who might be customers at a raw vegan restaurant. This kind of thing is preaching to the choir, really. A "regular" lacto-ovo cooked food vegetarian restaurant might have concerns about turning off the curious. But it's not like hamburger-eaters are ever going to make up a percentage of this restaurant's clientele lerge enough to even measure, never mind worry about turning off. If anything, bashing back at a banquet-eating, bacon-scarfing nonbeliever is likely to attract vegetarians or dilletantes... much in the same way that fire-and-brimstone preachers may turn off most people, but still manage to increase their flocks. ← I think she should just eat a little meat and she'll calm down a bit. I find that the lack of certain proteins (i.e.those found in a yummy, greasy hamburger) in a diet tend to make people very cross. Having said that and having had my fair share of owners who don't agree with my reviews, I think that for her to demand that the review be taken down is a bit ridiculous. Better to learn to laugh it off. The folks who eat this way will read and think the writer is messed up and the ones who don't more than likely will never eat there any way.

This analogy between "modern art" and nouvelle cuisine works. Art produced now is called "contemporary" and the word "modern" has a very specific meaning and refers to a particular historical period, just like nouvelle cuisine does. I don't think we'd call anything we'd brand as nouvelle cuisine "contemporary." ← again thanks, I'll use these points to fortify my side.

My editor and are are having an email discussion regardign the term nouvelle cuisine. We are getting ready for our annual "Best of" issue and nouvelle cuisine is one of the titles. I've argued for years that we chould change it to anything but NC because there is no such thing anymore. He says that people seem to know what it means by the choices they make so why change it. Can anyone help me with some great reasons why we should dump the term and use something else?

the parents should be tried for abuse. No four or eight or even twelve year old has the maturity to critique or cook meals. Yeah, it is fun to help in the kitchen, but really now, this is beyond ridiculous. I love kids but not when they are mini-adults. UGH!

This is what gets me: the Bravo editors knew who won before the first episode aired: they had months to tweak the editing to ensure that the winner was a surprise, but a pleasant one. And instead, what they ended up creating was some random schmuck that no one really cared about. Stefan was the "clear favorite," Carla the "Dark Horse," and, oh yeah, there was some other guy, too. What was his name? Of course I agree that within the context of the last episode it seems clear that Hosea deserved the win: the others simply screwed themselves with bad decisions. That doesn't explain to me how Bravo could have assembled and edited the season so poorly: I don't think anyone is "angry" about this choice, like many were when Ilan won; it's clear Hosea won fair and square here. The question is, why didn't they make him a more compelling winner? ← There wasn't much to work with with Hosea. So, what the editors did was shift focus and create a villain in Stefan to take the attention off Hosea winning. From the internet clips and interviews, Stefan was a confident but great guy- he helped shuck Carla's oysters for her in New Orleans, etc.. But, by making him this uber-villain whom the viewers hated, his loss in the finals would create a sense of relief that anybody but Stefan won. The editing wasn't so much about building up Hosea as it was tearing down Stefan. ← i don't think that is true at all.

I read an interview with the casting director where he stated that Jamie tried out for every season. I wonder why she wasn't picked in the earlier seasons. If it was because she was weaker than the contestants they picked for the previous seasons, it would say a lot considering that she was one of the strongest of season 5. ← I know people keep saying Jamie was great but i thought she was pretty one note okay maybe two notes. She made creamed stuff a couple of times and used scallops in one way or another on every show. she may be good but she doesn't have much creativity.